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Trunk road alongside canal will attract tourists, study claims (17/4/98)

Major national conference for May Day (4/4/98)

Who runs Bradford? Number 1: City Centre Management ( 2/4/98)


Trunk road alongside canal will attract tourists, study claims

April 17, 1998

[Road, Canal

Future prosperity for Bingley lies with the development of the Canal corridor for tourism, according to a study by consultants DTZ Pieda..

But the Canal can only be made attractive by building a 4-lane highway alongside it, the study concludes.

The study, commissioned at a cost of £10,000 by the Bingley Town Centre Partnership, brought mixed reaction. Partnership member Gordon Grist of Damart said "My reaction at this time is that there are obviously items in there that are not dependent on the relief road going ahead. I am favourably impressed by the report, they have done a good job."

But Angela Musgrave, an opponent of the "relief" road said: "The suggestion that the canal corridor can only be improved by building a 4-lane highway along side it is nonsense. Studies have shown pollution on the canal bank will increase massively. The traffic noise will just deter people. This bit of the report is just propaganda for the road building lobby."

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Major national Conference for May Day

April 4, 1998

[May Day '98 conference]. A major national political conference is to be hosted in Bradford to coincide with the now traditional Reclaim May Day events.

The conference on "Struggles for Social Change" came together following international Libertarian "Encounters" in the Chiapas region of Mexico in 1996 and Spain last year, and the disbandment last year of the Class War Federation.

The conference is open to everyone who "is serious about changing this world. The aim is to bring people together to share ideas and experiences. It will be totally different from anything you've been to before."

Organisers acknowledge the event "will only be a success if we are open and honest with each other and brave enough to confront new ideas. "

The final programme for Bradford's May Day events is now being put together and promises to be bigger and better then the spectacular last year. KDIS will be posting live reviews and reports over the 2 week May Day Events period.

May Day conference info Conference info

May Day Event listings | May Day Live Reviews

 

WHO RUNS BRADFORD?

[ATCM]. Number 1: City Centre Management

April 2, 1998

Bradford, Wolverhampton, Gravesend - it's becoming harder to tell the difference between our towns and cities. The same architecture, the same shops, the same policies; pedestrianisation, commercialisation, CCTV.

But this is no coincidence - it's the work of "Town Centre Management" - a movement set up by major retail corporations Boots and Marks & Spencers. Their aim is to reshape our towns and cities on the model of the "Out of Town Shopping Centre".

The two retail giants, who have a joint annual turnover in excess of £10 billion, were concerned at the loss of trade to Out of Town shopping centres, which threatened their own Town Centre assets and, of course, their profits. They joined forces to try and reverse the trend and, in effect, turn whole Town and City Centres into pseudo shopping malls.

Now, well over 150 towns and cities have their own "Town Centre Management" team - quangos run and financed by an unholy partnership of Company and Council. Bradford, Shipley and Keighley have their own, headed by "Town Centre Managers", financed from the public purse, and run by secretive and unelected "steering groups".

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